‘조선인 사형수’를 둘러싼 전유의 구도: 고마쓰가와 사건(小松川事件)과 일본/‘조선’

Abstract

This paper examines how differently Japanese society, zainichi Koreans, and South Korean society responded to and intervened with the Komatsugawa Incident, in which the culprit, later sentenced to death, turned out a zainich boy named Lee Jinwoo who caused controversy all over the Japan in the late 50s to the early 60s. Lee Jinwoo's story came to be widely known to the public through his correspondence with Pak Soonam, a zainichi journalist. The boy's refined and mature sensibility embracing philosophy, religion, literature and even social science drew attention from Japanese intellectuals, who were engaged with the campaign to save his life and appropriated him as an object of intellectual thoughts. For example, Suzuki Michihiko compared Lee's intense individuality and subtlety with that of Pak Soonam on the topic of nation and tempted to endow Lee with an intellectual significance. Oshima Nagisa interpreted Lee's being politically and sublimated him as a sacred “rebel” against the state power. On the other hand, through exposure to the Japanese gaze, Zainichi Koreans in Japan could not but remain helpless without knowing how to cope with the incident. Or Lee's case was thought to be another self-portrait to be disavowed by the zainichi Koreans who hoped a collective repatriation to North Korea in the ‘60s. At present, Zainichi Koreans have been haunted by existential questions from experiencing defense, disavowal, restoration and forgetting what Lee's case brought about. Interest directed to Lee's case from Korean society remained very restricted. Mostly, they were involved with a life-saving campaign from a religious and humanistic perspective. In this paper, by looking at how differently Japanese, zainichi Koreans, and South Koreans appropriated and disavowed the case of Lee Jinwoo, I aimed to examine distinct orientations of the three communities in the context of the politics of those days and highlight how they were related and simultaneously divorced from one another.